y Favorite Time of Year!

Man, the past couple months have flown by! I love, love, love this time of year. As soon as Fall hits, I know a lot of good stuff is on its way. I also love the yummy food and flavors that come along...pumpkin, cinnamon, peppermint, and of course good home cookin'! Here are a few fun recipes I've found on Pinterest that have contributed to all the great festivities in the last couples months. I hope you find these helpful for all of your parties and get-togethers coming up soon! 

Homecoming Week
One of the great things about working on a college campus is getting to partake in all the fun Homecoming activities. There is so much going on during that week and you can't help but enjoy it! Our office decided to do a homecoming potluck for lunch and we all brought in tailgating foods. I brought this yummy Beer Dip and these oh-so-delicious Brownie Cookies. Both turned out awesome...my favorite was the cookies. They are soooo yummy! Mine didn't come out quite as thick as they look on the website, but who cares how they look when they taste so good! The beer dip was good too and Michael was happy to finish off the leftovers that came back home. He was a big fan :) I definitely agree that it works best with pretzels.

                                 

Here is our awesome Conference Planning & Operations team at the parade! 

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is definitely one of my favorite days of the whole year. I love the traditions that come along with it: waking up and watching the parade, being in the kitchen with my mom, and spending the day with family. We always eat too much and inevitably a few fall asleep while watching the football game, while others are outside with all the kids playing in the yard. It is truly a day to be thankful for all we have been blessed with. Of course the food always steals the show. When you grow up in a Southern family, there are enough casseroles, desserts, and "fixins" to feed a small army! I knew it was a little risky trying two new recipes for the big day, but I thought I would make something new since I usually tend to bring the same things over and over. This year I tried a recipe for Cream Cheese Corn, as well as a Pumpkin Coffee Cake. The corn was tasty...the kids especially liked it...but it could've used a little more flavor. I ended up adding a little garlic since I thought it was a tad bland and that helped a lot. It was a good compliment to the other food and I did get good remarks on it. The big winner, though, was the coffee cake. If you get a chance to make this over the holidays, please do! It was seriously delish. There wasn't a crumb left at the end of the day! It has a brown sugar glaze on the top that seeps into the cake and makes it so soft. This would also be great in the mornings with a good cup of coffee. I'd vote this one one of my favorites so far...will definitely make it again soon!













Here are a few more pictures of some great times over the Thanksgiving break. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

Michael tries his first piece of pecan pie...you're Southern now! 

Clemson game! 

Enjoying Disney on Ice with sweet Ellie bug!